Thoughts from the interface of science, religion, law and culture

After spending several years touring the country as a stand up comedian, Ed Brayton tired of explaining his jokes to small groups of dazed illiterates and turned to writing as the most common outlet for the voices in his head. He has appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show and the Thom Hartmann Show, and is almost certain that he is the only person ever to make fun of Chuck Norris on C-SPAN.

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Wingnuts Can Read Obama’s Mind

Wow, just when you thought the wingnuts had hid rock bottom on just how insane they could be in their attacks on President Obama, they up the ante again. Now the Worldnutdaily is quoting an “expert” who claims that if you read between the lines of Obama’s recent speech at the UN, you can detect him admitting that he isn’t eligible to be president.

A psychiatrist and forensic profiler who decoded O.J. Simpson’s “suicide note,” deciphered the JonBenet Ramsey ransom note and worked on the Natalee Holloway murder case now has analyzed the United Nations speech by Barack Obama and says the president confessed he’s ineligible for the Oval Office and told Americans they must use the Constitution to solve the problem.

He uses a unique psycholinguistic technique he calls “ThoughtPrint Decoding” to “read between the lines” of people’s statements – called “the cutting-edge of forensic science” by expert investigators.

By the way, WND is here caught plagiarizing yet again. That last sentence was taken directly from the Amazon page for Hodges’ book on the same subject:

Using a unique psycholinguistic technique he calls “ThoughtPrint Decoding” to “read between the lines” of people’s statements–called “the cutting-edge of forensic science” by expert investigators–Hodges ultimately discovers the truth.

Seriously, they can’t even be bothered to reword it a little bit, they just cut and paste. But wait till you hear Hodges’ awesomely idiotic argument:

Hodges says in his analysis of Obama’s U.N. address that the president “continues to reference attacks on America and our Constitution.”

Obama said in the speech: “The attacks on our civilians … were attacks on America … we will be relentless in tracking down the killers and bringing them to justice.”

Hodges writes that Obama “again confesses his illegal presidency was an attack upon America, upon justice. So he promises to relentlessly track down his symbolic killing – destruction of – the Constitution.”

Obama said “the attacks of the last two weeks are not simply an assault on America. They are also an assault on the very ideals upon which the United [States] was founded.

Here, Hodges writes, Obama is “once more alluding to his constitutional attack. He can’t say it enough.”

Obama further stated the “answer is enshrined in our laws: our Constitution … yet we do not ban blasphemy against our most sacred beliefs. Moreover, as president of our country, I [accept that people are going to] call me awful things every day.”

Hodges says Obama “unconsciously reminds us that no one has confronted his blasphemy as a false president flaunting our most sacred beliefs — even as he calls his deed ‘awful.’ Obama’s succinct answer to his illegal presidency: enforce the Constitution.”

Wow. Seriously, just wow. This guy is a psychiatrist, for fuck’s sake. And obviously a complete fraud. There simply is no limit to how stupid and crazy these people can be. None whatsoever.

I had never heard of this asshole before but a little Googeling indicates that he wrote a book claiming that the infamous ransom note was really a confession by Patsy Ramsey. Of course, the fact that the District Attorney in Boulder has declared that the Ramseys are innocent and no longer considered suspects, based on new DNA technology that identified the DNA on Jon Benet Ramsey’s pajamas as not belonging to any of the Ramseys totally discredits him. Clearly this putz is a quack.

I would guess that his “psychiatry” degree came from one of those so-called xtian colleges or one of those on-line rip-offs that have been advertising their online psychology degrees lately.

If you do some google research he actually has his MD from the University of Alabama Medical School….in 1969. Did his residency at Emory and practices in Birmingham. At some point, at least, was a professor of psychiatry at University of Alabama.

That makes me suspect something more cynical, which is that this is a psychiatrist who got tired of seeing 100 patients a day just to renew their antidepressant prescriptions, and decided to ride the wingnut welfare train.

Sometimes I think I should write a book filled with conspiratorial thoughts about Obama to see if I could make a buck or two. And then after winguts cite it with approval, I’ll tell them “Actually, I wrote it as a joke and you swallowed it hook, line and sinker.”

I like how Hodges “reading” of Obama’s comments often interprets a “singular” from Obama’s plural-based remarks.. For example, Hodges gets “attack upon America” (singular) from Obama’s “attacks on our civilians” (plural) line. I would think that if you’re going to go the “s/he said x when what s/he was REALLY saying was y” route, then x and y both have to match in terms of singularity and plurality.

He uses a unique psycholinguistic technique he calls “ThoughtPrint Decoding” to “read between the lines” of people’s statements …

That’s just pseudoscientific nonsense.

The proper approach involves skip-coding equidistant letter sequences as measured by quantitative tools of randomization analysis. If you read between the lines, the speech spells out “WND…(i)s …f(u)ll…(o)f…sh(i)t.” The odds of this happening just by chance are 10 (42).

That’s nothing. Using that new technique of phrenology that’s all the rage these days, I studied photos from all sides of the president’s head to detect the shape and bumps of his skull, revealing that he is a gray alien Nazi homosexual atheist Muslim. It also showed that — despite the earlier evidence he was born to a Kenyan father — Obama actually was part of an experiment in which frozen semen from Hitler was used to impregnate the actress who played the maid on The Jeffersons.
This is all part of my exciting upcoming tell-all book entitled “Fucktards, Send Me Your Money.”

Sounds like he’s just following the very clear trail of Nobama’s perfidity!

It’s as easy as the Teabagger ABCs!

A is for snooker-doodles.

B is for Yosemite Sam…

I thought I’d read wingnut rants of crystallized stupid insanity before, but this is so crazy I can’t even begin to follow it. This “psychiatrist” needs, without exaggeration, psychiatric help immediately!

Sometimes I think I should write a book filled with conspiratorial thoughts about Obama to see if I could make a buck or two. And then after winguts cite it with approval, I’ll tell them “Actually, I wrote it as a joke and you swallowed it hook, line and sinker.”

They’d go right on believing. Seriously, without missing a beat, they’d declare that what you put down was the actual truth revealed by your subconscious mind, or that you had been blackmailed by the Obama administration to lie about having made it up, or possibly both at the same time.

Reading between the lines of that story about people’s inner feelings are revealed by reading between the lines, I get the distinct feeling that Hodges is desperately trying to tell us about his own dishonesty. For example, it was said that Hodges’ work is like reading a parable, which everyone knows means you get whatever meaning out of it you want. So he’s secretly telling us that Hodges gets whatever meaning he wants to out of these letters, notes, and speeches. The recurrent theme of violence and dishonesty about one’s past is striking: it makes one wonder whether Hodges has a sleazy and violent past that he’d rather not consciously reveal, but that comes through in all these analyses.

It should be noted that this type of psychological profiling is bullshit, regardless who does it. It’s right up there with acupuncture and haunted houses. I wish skeptics would focus on it a bit more, because these profiles are being used by the police to filter out suspects, and in courts as evidence. It’s the same as inviting a psychic to tell the judge who did it, and yet, we do it every day, there are tons of TV shows glorifying it, and nobody seems to care about it.

There was just a program on NOVA about forensic investigations. Everything is being rethought and having to be (re)proven. Even fingerprinting is being reexamined, as it turns out so many underlying assumptions are in error. Looks like this guy will be going to the top o the next class.